SOMERSWORTH — The tragic accident that left Dawn Brancheau dead at the bottom of a SeaWorld pool in 2010 was one of the many points discussed during a reading and signing of author David Kirby’s book “Death at SeaWorld” in Somersworth Saturday.Brancheau’s death affected many people in the crowd including the Connell family of Somersworth. Todd and Suzanne Connell were celebrating their son’s birthday at SeaWorld at the “Dine with Shamu” show, when they witnessed the killer whale, Tilicum, drag Brancheau below the surface.The Connell’s sued SeaWorld for $15,000 claiming that their son suffered emotional distress after the incident. In 2011 a Florida judge dismissed their case.The Connell family did not appear at the event, which was held at Barbara and Bruce Lovett’s house. Barbara is a local resident who got involved when she watched Animal Planet’s “Whale Wars” and documentaries on the subject of animal treatment. “I came into this too late in life,” Barbara said. “Without Facebook I don’t think we would have been able to do it.”Kirby started writing the book based on Brancheau’s death but focuses on the work of Naomi Rose, a marine mammal biologist at the Humane Society of the United States. Rose has been working against SeaWorld and how they handle killer whales.Kirby wrote about Tilicum in his book as a character for people to care about. In the third chapter he describes Tilicum’s capture using the second person.“I was able to reconstruct it and the way I wrote it was imagine you are a young whale,” Kirby said. “He’s not a villain, he’s a victim. No one really treated Tilicum as a villain.”Rose believes reading the book will allow people to learn the history of the captivity of killer whales. “I think we need to make it more mainstream,” Rose said. “I just think we need to encourage people to question what’s going on. One of the reasons that I’m so opposed to this is because I know the natural history of the animals and what you see in captivity is so foreign to that.”A survey conducted by Rose showed that 34 percent of the population has no opinion on the controversy of keeping killer whales in captivity. Rose says that they plan on using social media to reach these people. “I’m not trying to destroy SeaWorld,” Rose said. “I just want whales out of captivity. They are the largest animal in captivity because elephants are in terms of weight smaller. You can give an elephant an entire acreage. You can’t do that for a whale. It’s a big animal in a small space”Since the book has been published, Rose says a lot of progress has been made. Book reviews have appeared in publications including the Wall Street Journal, “That actually upset some of their readership because they are used to pro-business reporting,” Rose said. “For our book rewview to be very positive and also very negative about a business wasn’t something they were used to. That kind of exposure is what we need, in these unusual places where animal stories aren’t often found.”Lee Giffen, of Somersworth, attended the event because Barbara inspired him to get involved with the cause.“Her passion has been instrumental. Here’s a cause you can really get into,” Giffen said. “It came from the heart.”Meanwhile Nakai, a killer whale at SeaWorld in San Diego, recently turned the spotlight back onto the issue after an accident on Sept. 20 left a portion of its chin torn off. SeaWorld said it was a result of hitting the side of the pool but four puncture holes located on the skin surrounding the wound have many people questioning whether another killer whale attacked it.“I hope we find out what happened to Nakai because I think it’s important,” Kirby said. “I wish we could get a forensics team to investigate where on the pool it happened. I’ve never heard of a whale hurting themselves in this way, but I’ve never heard of a whale taking a chunk of another whale.”